Ukraine War

[Nivek 16981]

2 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Listen to Hillary's points. She was dead on.  Too bad people didn't listen or were incapable of actual thinking.

The problem is that Hillary isn't attractive enough or young enough to hold office here.  Maybe we need those Nordic leaders that @ChickenSandwich seems to think were going to get their asses kicked by some drunk grumpy Russian who is probably in jail now.  

[Bojack 2081]

9 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

The Kremlin is mirroring American right-wing talking points to make their propaganda more palatable to a US audience.  Hannity not only repeated and wholeheartedly agreed with the Kremlin spokesperson but they added that video of Biden to further suggest he's old and feeble.  We'll see a lot more of this kind of coordination between Russia and American fascists in the lead up to the mid-terms.  They'd rather be Russian than Democrats and they hate American "liberals" above all else after 30 plus years of shit like this being their news.  

[Nivek 16981]

The Kremlin is mirroring American right-wing talking points to make their propaganda more palatable to a US audience.  Hannity not only repeated and wholeheartedly agreed with the Kremlin spokesperson but they added that video of Biden to further suggest he's old and feeble.  We'll see a lot more of this kind of coordination between Russia and American fascists in the lead up to the mid-terms.  They'd rather be Russian than Democrats and they hate American "liberals" above all else after 30 plus years of shit like this being their news.  

They love giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies.

[TexArcher 38032]

13 minutes ago, Nivek said:

They love giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies.

There oughtta be a word for that.  And some sort of penalty.

[cactusflinthead 27601]

I ain't posting this over in DT.

He gets folks all fired up. 

 

[Thatguy 8833]

3 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Listen to Hillary's points. She was dead on.  Too bad people didn't listen or were incapable of actual thinking.

  I am not a Clinton fan but g-damn she was spot the f on!! Man we were idiots for letting that clown in the WH. I am not all in on career politicians, but the President of the United States should at least be intelligent. Right or wrong I always felt a bit of embarrassment when the on-the-scene journalist would pick out the most illiterate black person(calm down I am black too) to stick the mic in front of and ask what they saw. I felt the same bit of embarrassment when Trump would speak.

[tx 3 putt 77345]

2 hours ago, Bojack said:

The Kremlin is mirroring American right-wing talking points to make their propaganda more palatable to a US audience.  Hannity not only repeated and wholeheartedly agreed with the Kremlin spokesperson but they added that video of Biden to further suggest he's old and feeble.  We'll see a lot more of this kind of coordination between Russia and American fascists in the lead up to the mid-terms.  They'd rather be Russian than Democrats and they hate American "liberals" above all else after 30 plus years of shit like this being their news.  

[SaucyJack 3500]

[Satchel 6948]

It must be restated for emphasis. What Putin is doing to innocent people in Ukraine is diabolical and an atrocity. It’s really hard to imagine.

[RomaVicta 29977]

5 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

I ain't posting this over in DT.

He gets folks all fired up. 

 

Wow. A feel-good post about action, sacrifice, and courage. That's what I'm talking 'bout!

Will the Russians look back on this protest against an unjust war that includes protesters being imprisoned and popular music taking up the cause as the roots of an insidious culture war like the American right hate engine does today about our 60s-70s?

Or will they see it as a shake up in the ways things are done? Largely but not universally beneficial?

Thanks again for some great stuff.

 

[RomaVicta 29977]

5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  I am not a Clinton fan but g-damn she was spot the f on!! Man we were idiots for letting that clown in the WH. I am not all in on career politicians, but the President of the United States should at least be intelligent. Right or wrong I always felt a bit of embarrassment when the on-the-scene journalist would pick out the most illiterate black person(calm down I am black too) to stick the mic in front of and ask what they saw. I felt the same bit of embarrassment when Trump would speak.

Pos rep. I love a good reconsideration.

I also like that you don't feel obliged to say you hate Hillary Clinton. People may not like her or agree with her, but the hate for her is the product of the right's hate engine. They planted this hate seed back before many people realized that right wing propagandists had no regard whatsoever for actual truth. Even as actual conservatives recoiled from the abomination that the GOP made of their political ideology, I feel that many could not weed out some of the poison that was already administered to their beliefs.

Again, I'm not saying we all should love any politician or even like one. I do feel that the hate towards H. Clinton is out of proportion and unfair. She's an accomplished woman from her days as a student through practicing law to national service.

I have no regrets about voting for her. It's sad that had she won the presidency, the right wing, lock-step hate engine would have burned the whole country down in a different way so they could blame it on her. I honestly don't know that Clinton being elected president would have been actually better for the country. At least some have spit the bit on the hate engine. The lines are now clear for the pro-republic party even if the fascist party lives in a toxic bubble of delusion.

[Satchel 6948]

14 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Pos rep. I love a good reconsideration.

I also like that you don't feel obliged to say you hate Hillary Clinton. People may not like her or agree with her, but the hate for her is the product of the right's hate engine. They planted this hate seed back before many people realized that right wing propagandists had no regard whatsoever for actual truth. Even as actual conservatives recoiled from the abomination that the GOP made of their political ideology, I feel that many could not weed out some of the poison that was already administered to their beliefs.

Again, I'm not saying we all should love any politician or even like one. I do feel that the hate towards H. Clinton is out of proportion and unfair. She's an accomplished woman from her days as a student through practicing law to national service.

I have no regrets about voting for her. It's sad that had she won the presidency, the right wing, lock-step hate engine would have burned the whole country down in a different way so they could blame it on her. I honestly don't know that Clinton being elected president would have been actually better for the country. At least some have spit the bit on the hate engine. The lines are now clear for the pro-republic party even if the fascist party lives in a toxic bubble of delusion.

Great post.

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

55 minutes ago, Satchel said:

It must be restated for emphasis. What Putin is doing to innocent people in Ukraine is diabolical and an atrocity. It’s really hard to imagine.

 

[Satchel 6948]

28 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Wow. A feel-good post about action, sacrifice, and courage. That's what I'm talking 'bout!

Will the Russians look back on this protest against an unjust war that includes protesters being imprisoned and popular music taking up the cause as the roots of an insidious culture war like the American right hate engine does today about our 60s-70s?

Or will they see it as a shake up in the ways things are done? Largely but not universally beneficial?

Thanks again for some great stuff.

 

There’s a reason Pope Francis is not a favorite of conservative Christians in general and Catholics in particular. Richard Rohr says it best:

“Christianity... was originally offered in Israel as an experience. moved to Greece and became a philosophy. moved to Rome and became organized religion. moved to Europe and became a culture. then moved to America and became a business.” 

[jimmyjazz 46104]

That guy needs to be pummeled about the head and shoulders for not capitalizing the first word of any sentence.

[JimmyJames 12271]

56 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Pos rep. I love a good reconsideration.

I also like that you don't feel obliged to say you hate Hillary Clinton. People may not like her or agree with her, but the hate for her is the product of the right's hate engine. They planted this hate seed back before many people realized that right wing propagandists had no regard whatsoever for actual truth. Even as actual conservatives recoiled from the abomination that the GOP made of their political ideology, I feel that many could not weed out some of the poison that was already administered to their beliefs.

Again, I'm not saying we all should love any politician or even like one. I do feel that the hate towards H. Clinton is out of proportion and unfair. She's an accomplished woman from her days as a student through practicing law to national service.

I have no regrets about voting for her. It's sad that had she won the presidency, the right wing, lock-step hate engine would have burned the whole country down in a different way so they could blame it on her. I honestly don't know that Clinton being elected president would have been actually better for the country. At least some have spit the bit on the hate engine. The lines are now clear for the pro-republic party even if the fascist party lives in a toxic bubble of delusion.

I never “hated” Hillary but I was supremely annoyed that she got put in charge of reforming one of the most important and politically fraught industries in the country just because she was the wife of the president and then proceeded to fuck it all up which was as predictable as the weather in Texas in August given the huge sums of money and powerful interests involved. 
 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

19 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I never “hated” Hillary but I was supremely annoyed that she got put in charge of reforming one of the most important and politically fraught industries in the country just because she was the wife of the president and then proceeded to fuck it all up which was as predictable as the weather in Texas in August given the huge sums of money and powerful interests involved. 
 

 

What was her plan and how did she fuck it up? What did it cost? What did the fact that the Republican establishment was going to do everything in its power to stop it from happening no matter what the plan was have to do with its failure? Can you recommend an authoritative book on the subject?

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20476]

Ukrainian Legos 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20476]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

 

I hate defending Trump (see my other 5,000 posts on this board) but he's right:  in a war that was completely of our own volition and our own choice ----- we DID drop a bunch of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed a bunch of innocent people.  By definition, that means we have a lot of killers, too. 

I hate it that he was right about that, but he was.

Of course, that doesn't justify anything but, as a strictly factual statement, he was correct. 



 

Edited March 20, 2022 by Horn Under a Bad Sign

[jimmyjazz 46104]

3 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I hate defending Trump (see my other 5,000 posts on this board) but he's right:  in a war that was completely of our own volition and our own choice ----- we DID drop a bunch of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed a bunch of innocent people.  By definition, that means we have a lot of killers, too. 

I hate it that he was right about that, but he was.

Of course, that doesn't justify anything but, as a strictly factual statement, he was correct. 

I don't want to try to parse the difference between war and murder, because there really isn't much to parse, but I think the "killer" reference was hinting at murder, and so was Trump's response.

[Guest Lobo]

12 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Ukrainian Legos 

Please somebody make this come true.  I know the Danes would use the proceeds for a good cause.  Holy shit, I would buy ten of these to build with my kids.  I know they purposely don't do much in the "real" war space, mainly sticking to spaceships, pirates, etc.---nothing involving modern warfare.  But c'mon Lego, seize the moment, do something good with the sales, and let's have a few laughs.  

[Satchel 6948]

29 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

What was her plan and how did she fuck it up? What did it cost? What did the fact that the Republican establishment was going to do everything in its power to stop it from happening no matter what the plan was have to do with its failure? Can you recommend an authoritative book on the subject?

This is what has always annoyed me about Hillary hate. When pressed, her detractors are rarely able to craft a coherent case for her objectification. It’s mostly, I just don’t like her.

[jimmyjazz 46104]

1 minute ago, Satchel said:

This is what has always annoyed me about Hillary hate. When pressed, her detractors are rarely able to craft a coherent case for her objectification. It’s mostly, I just don’t like her.

Well, she's not pretty, she's smart as hell, and she doesn't take shit from men, so I think that sums it up.

[RomaVicta 29977]

7 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I hate defending Trump (see my other 5,000 posts on this board) but he's right:  in a war that was completely of our own volition and our own choice ----- we DID drop a bunch of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed a bunch of innocent people.  By definition, that means we have a lot of killers, too. 

I hate it that he was right about that, but he was.

Of course, that doesn't justify anything but, as a strictly factual statement, he was correct. 



 

You are right in appraising our culpability (guilt) in the killing of so many civilians particularly in Iraq but surely too many in Afghanistan, too. I don't like the way we sugarcoat the results of our military action. 

Trump is wrong in that he equates US policy and history with Putin. I think any American or American commander would prefer victory with no civilian deaths; they always err on just how many civilians we'll kill. It's horrendous. In contrast, Putin has employed murder broadly in political competition and is using civilian slaughter as a chosen strategy to win his evil war against Ukraine. 

In this comparison, I think intent does matter. Our well-meaning isn't a get out of jail card for the civilians we kill. Putin's willful slaughter deserves condemnation for what it is: outright, premeditated murder.

As a side note, the US is diverse in the hand it reaches towards other nations and peoples. Government is usually a bloodied fist, but sometimes there is a real attempt at humanitarianism. Privately, countless entities, including many of the churches that I don't much like for other reasons, show up to provide health care, education, training, and doubtless many things I don't even know about. The bloody fist isn't the only aspect of American engagement. It pretty much is the only aspect to everything Putin does.

 

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

9 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

I hate defending Trump (see my other 5,000 posts on this board) but he's right:  in a war that was completely of our own volition and our own choice ----- we DID drop a bunch of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed a bunch of innocent people.  By definition, that means we have a lot of killers, too. 

I hate it that he was right about that, but he was.

Of course, that doesn't justify anything but, as a strictly factual statement, he was correct. 

Oh bullshit. We don’t intentionally kill innocent people. (Unless we’re talking about Blackwater contractors in Iraq.) We use smart bombs which don’t always hit their intended targets, and sometimes hit the wrong targets due to faulty intelligence. That’s war. We never went out targeting civilian homes, schools, and hospitals just for the sake of cruelty. Even when we bombed military targets like radar and communications facilities we often targeted them at night to minimize the loss of human life.

Putin does intentionally target innocent civilians. Worse yet he poisons and assassinates his political enemies, his own people. We don’t do that. He jails some of them and Trump tried to do that to. But other than Trump we haven’t had a leader who wanted to throw his or her opponents in jail for purely political reasons. You can’t both sides the killing that Putin does with our collateral damage in a war zone. We’re not perfect but we do a far better job of limiting civilian deaths than we did in WWII. Because we try. Putin not only doesn’t try, he intends to kill civilians just like in WWII. We’re not the same at all. 

[Guest Lobo]

Many valid points about our military/private contractor action in Iraq particularly...but also Afghanistan.  

But am I the only one that sees that interview different?  Trump had that line queued up in his head.  I don't think that's hard to grasp, he telegraphed that from a mile away and he's not usually good at shit like that.  But O'Reilly, I think, was in on it.  I think he framed that entire exchange and Trump knew he'd get to "A Killer" part and let Trump bring the line home.  I think the whole thing was choreographed so Trump could at once throw "The Swamp-Industrial complex" into question while also appeasing Putin.  Took awhile, but watch it again.  It's forced and O'Reilly's head-back thing with Trump suddenly getting "pithy"...it feels setup.  Or maybe they're just two assholes.  

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

21 minutes ago, Satchel said:

This is what has always annoyed me about Hillary hate. When pressed, her detractors are rarely able to craft a coherent case for her objectification. It’s mostly, I just don’t like her.

And it’s weird how ostensibly progressive people can be influenced by decades of character assassination of the Clintons coming from the right and start repeating it as fact. The fact was that those on the right used to complain that they didn’t know what was in Hillary’s health care plan so it’s really hard to find anyone who can articulate what it was. All I know for sure is that hers included a universal mandate just like the one conceived at the Heritage Foundation, pushed as an alternative by Bob Dole, later passed In Massachusetts by Gov. Mitt Romney, and which was the model for Obamacare. 

[Neonmoon 38130]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

What was her plan and how did she fuck it up? What did it cost? What did the fact that the Republican establishment was going to do everything in its power to stop it from happening no matter what the plan was have to do with its failure? Can you recommend an authoritative book on the subject?

H.R. 1200 American Health Security Act of 1993.

After the 1992 election, Democrats controlled the White House and congress. They could pass whatever they fuck they wanted. President Clinton ran on reforming healthcare, specifically passing universal healthcare, and after he was elected he set up Task Force on National Health Care Reform and put his wife, Hillary Clinton in charge. 

The main fuck up was speed. They spent an entire year trying to figure out what the plan should be. Much of history, if the President doesn’t pass major legislation within a year of getting elected, it’s not likely to pass. You have to use the momentum of the election, the supposed mandate, to ram through as much as you can. If you spend an entire year trying to figure out what the fuck you are doing with your main agenda, you’re fucked. Second, she didn’t include anyone else in these task force meetings from the medical community. Yes, big Pharma is going to oppose you but other big associations like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons was kept out, same with AMA. You have to engage the doctors and hospital associations, even big Pharma. Why? Obama faced the exact same challenges and overcame them. Yes he had to capitulate to big Pharma demands about no price caps on drugs, but he got major endorsements from American Medical Association. He also rammed it through Congress his first year, (well he had to deal with a Democrat dying and the special election, but yeah)

And why is speed important? The American Health Security Act eventually was introduced in November 1993, and Republicans already amassed great resistance. The bill was fought over in 1994 before dying late in the year and Republicans used this whole fuckup to win a majority in mid terms, ending any chance of healthcare reform for Clinton. 

In conclusion, Clinton fucked the pooch by letting his wife lead the task force on his major policy initiative. Imagine if Trump got elected and said, okay, Melania is going to work out this trade situation. What?

Hilary was set up to fail, but she didn’t exactly do a great job. She spent way too long doing who knows what, excluding the entire medical community, only to release a giant abortion of a bill that crashed into the mountain.

(I took a class in grad school on history of healthcare management)

[Francisco 2.0 32416]

Could go into any number of threads here:

 

 

 

 

[tchookem 3905]

I hate defending Trump (see my other 5,000 posts on this board) but he's right:  in a war that was completely of our own volition and our own choice ----- we DID drop a bunch of bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed a bunch of innocent people.  By definition, that means we have a lot of killers, too. 

I hate it that he was right about that, but he was.

Of course, that doesn't justify anything but, as a strictly factual statement, he was correct. 



 

Like everything Trump ever said, it would be different if he simply added "... and we should do better."

I think you may agree with his words, but I doubt you agree with his sentiment. He wasn't actually trying to solve the problem of Putin killing innocent people, he was trying to justify it.

It's one of the things that makes both siderism ring hollow.

[Captainant 27727]

20 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Could go into any number of threads here:

 

 

 

 

I dare ya to post it in the DT thread(s)

[Thatguy 8833]

32 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Could go into any number of threads here:

 

 

 

 

Looks pretty familiar

[JimmyJames 12271]

44 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

H.R. 1200 American Health Security Act of 1993.

After the 1992 election, Democrats controlled the White House and congress. They could pass whatever they fuck they wanted. President Clinton ran on reforming healthcare, specifically passing universal healthcare, and after he was elected he set up Task Force on National Health Care Reform and put his wife, Hillary Clinton in charge. 

The main fuck up was speed. They spent an entire year trying to figure out what the plan should be. Much of history, if the President doesn’t pass major legislation within a year of getting elected, it’s not likely to pass. You have to use the momentum of the election, the supposed mandate, to ram through as much as you can. If you spend an entire year trying to figure out what the fuck you are doing with your main agenda, you’re fucked. Second, she didn’t include anyone else in these task force meetings from the medical community. Yes, big Pharma is going to oppose you but other big associations like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons was kept out, same with AMA. You have to engage the doctors and hospital associations, even big Pharma. Why? Obama faced the exact same challenges and overcame them. Yes he had to capitulate to big Pharma demands about no price caps on drugs, but he got major endorsements from American Medical Association. He also rammed it through Congress his first year, (well he had to deal with a Democrat dying and the special election, but yeah)

And why is speed important? The American Health Security Act eventually was introduced in November 1993, and Republicans already amassed great resistance. The bill was fought over in 1994 before dying late in the year and Republicans used this whole fuckup to win a majority in mid terms, ending any chance of healthcare reform for Clinton. 

In conclusion, Clinton fucked the pooch by letting his wife lead the task force on his major policy initiative. Imagine if Trump got elected and said, okay, Melania is going to work out this trade situation. What?

Hilary was set up to fail, but she didn’t exactly do a great job. She spent way too long doing who knows what, excluding the entire medical community, only to release a giant abortion of a bill that crashed into the mountain.

(I took a class in grad school on history of healthcare management)

Um. What that guy just said?

[Thatguy 8833]

3 hours ago, Satchel said:

This is what has always annoyed me about Hillary hate. When pressed, her detractors are rarely able to craft a coherent case for her objectification. It’s mostly, I just don’t like her.

   My irritation with her may have been a bit nonsensical. I didn't like the bills that got passed during the Clinton tenure that had a lot to do with the recession and subsequent bailout. I also didn't like the 1994 Crime Bill. So what I am saying is I attached her to Bill and things that happened under his tenure. Mind you, that was 20 years ago.

[Satchel 6948]

Is Melania a policy wonk too?

[Dutchrudder 11150]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Could go into any number of threads here:

 

 

 

 

Or maybe a lot of the antivaxx "news" sites are actually Russian disinformation fronts...

[RomaVicta 29977]

3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

In conclusion, Clinton fucked the pooch by letting his wife lead the task force on his major policy initiative. Imagine if Trump got elected and said, okay, Melania is going to work out this trade situation. What?

Chicks doing government shit, right? I mean, can you really tell a high class hooker from a Wellesley valedictorian who got top grades at an Ivy League law school? They're all addle brained whores looking for any angle to get ahead.

Maybe a little sexist.

[Hornius Emeritus 12483]

5 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Oh bullshit. We don’t intentionally kill innocent people.

Two comments and I'll let it go:  1) We kill people and that's what Trump said. He also asked are we "so innocent" when, clearly, we're not.  2) I am thinking the distinction between a death that occurred as an accidental byproduct of a decision to invade and one that occurred as a deliberate aim of a decision to invade is lost on the person who gets killed.

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

5 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

H.R. 1200 American Health Security Act of 1993.

After the 1992 election, Democrats controlled the White House and congress. They could pass whatever they fuck they wanted. President Clinton ran on reforming healthcare, specifically passing universal healthcare, and after he was elected he set up Task Force on National Health Care Reform and put his wife, Hillary Clinton in charge. 

The main fuck up was speed. They spent an entire year trying to figure out what the plan should be. Much of history, if the President doesn’t pass major legislation within a year of getting elected, it’s not likely to pass. You have to use the momentum of the election, the supposed mandate, to ram through as much as you can. If you spend an entire year trying to figure out what the fuck you are doing with your main agenda, you’re fucked. Second, she didn’t include anyone else in these task force meetings from the medical community. Yes, big Pharma is going to oppose you but other big associations like the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons was kept out, same with AMA. You have to engage the doctors and hospital associations, even big Pharma. Why? Obama faced the exact same challenges and overcame them. Yes he had to capitulate to big Pharma demands about no price caps on drugs, but he got major endorsements from American Medical Association. He also rammed it through Congress his first year, (well he had to deal with a Democrat dying and the special election, but yeah)

And why is speed important? The American Health Security Act eventually was introduced in November 1993, and Republicans already amassed great resistance. The bill was fought over in 1994 before dying late in the year and Republicans used this whole fuckup to win a majority in mid terms, ending any chance of healthcare reform for Clinton. 

In conclusion, Clinton fucked the pooch by letting his wife lead the task force on his major policy initiative. Imagine if Trump got elected and said, okay, Melania is going to work out this trade situation. What?

Hilary was set up to fail, but she didn’t exactly do a great job. She spent way too long doing who knows what, excluding the entire medical community, only to release a giant abortion of a bill that crashed into the mountain.

(I took a class in grad school on history of healthcare management)

If not for Hillary’s failed attempt, would Obama’s have been successful?

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

5 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Um. What that guy just said?

So the main problem was that she just didn’t act fast enough? Who would’ve acted more quickly? Who should've been in charge who would’ve guaranteed a successful outcome? What would that bill have looked like?

At least trying and failing doesn’t do any damage. It’s better than passing a bad law. Of course the Republicans like to say that Obamacare is the worst that’s ever been passed ever and they’re desperate to kill it. But they can’t come up with an alternative of their own even though Trump assured us that he would and it would be easy. Then he said, “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” So he just tried to kill the ACA because it had Obama’s name attached to it.

Hillary was eminently more qualified to take on the task than Trump or Kushner or any of the other rank amateurs in his administration. She at least spent her life in public service. Just because she was Bill’s wife didn’t mean she wasn’t smart and part of his team throughout his career. Remember after Bill’s election there were some people saying we elected the wrong Clinton. I take some exception to the “just because she was his wife” argument especially after seeing dimwits like Jared and Ivanka getting  prominent roles in the Trump administration and doing serious damage. Like ensuring that there will never be a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine situation and scuttling a response to the pandemic for political reasons because early on it appeared to only be affecting blue states. Or using the position for personal financial gain. I think that fully exonerates Hillary’s role in Bill’s administration and she went on to have a pretty distinguished political career of her own afterward. She definitely would’ve made a better President than Donald Fucking Trump.

I don’t want to derail the thread any further than that. But if anyone wanted to start a thread about Obamacare, Romneycare, and Hillarycare so we could compare and contrast everything in them, that might be interesting. This isn’t the place to discuss it but it would be interesting to know what people find so objectionable about Hillary’s plan. (I was going to say Hillary’s bill but that just sounds weird.)

https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1200

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

2 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Two comments and I'll let it go:  1) We kill people and that's what Trump said. He also asked are we "so innocent" when, clearly, we're not.  2) I am thinking the distinction between a death that occurred as an accidental byproduct of a decision to invade and one that occurred as a deliberate aim of a decision to invade is lost on the person who gets killed.

Who was the last American President who poisoned a political rival? Or had them shot outside the White House? Putin does that shit. We don’t. Do you know who Alexei Navalny is? How about Sergei Magnitsky? Boris Nemtsov? Google those names if you’re unfamiliar. I could go on.

The question wasn’t about unavoidable but unintentional death. 

[Caponata 151]

10 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

You are right in appraising our culpability (guilt) in the killing of so many civilians particularly in Iraq but surely too many in Afghanistan, too. I don't like the way we sugarcoat the results of our military action. 

Trump is wrong in that he equates US policy and history with Putin. I think any American or American commander would prefer victory with no civilian deaths; they always err on just how many civilians we'll kill. It's horrendous. In contrast, Putin has employed murder broadly in political competition and is using civilian slaughter as a chosen strategy to win his evil war against Ukraine. 

In this comparison, I think intent does matter. Our well-meaning isn't a get out of jail card for the civilians we kill. Putin's willful slaughter deserves condemnation for what it is: outright, premeditated murder.

As a side note, the US is diverse in the hand it reaches towards other nations and peoples. Government is usually a bloodied fist, but sometimes there is a real attempt at humanitarianism. Privately, countless entities, including many of the churches that I don't much like for other reasons, show up to provide health care, education, training, and doubtless many things I don't even know about. The bloody fist isn't the only aspect of American engagement. It pretty much is the only aspect to everything Putin does.

 

We're currently involved in a genocide in Yemen. Not a fucking peep of mainstream news coverage. 

[Nivek 16981]

4 hours ago, Caponata said:

We're currently involved in a genocide in Yemen. Not a fucking peep of mainstream news coverage. 

negged for repeating a previously discussed (and dismissed) point. 

 

[956 Worldwide 34747]

12 hours ago, Dutchrudder said:

Or maybe a lot of the antivaxx "news" sites are actually Russian disinformation fronts...

It’s both. And yeah, the Russians have been heavily involved in pushing anti-vaxxery but it’s more amplification of what existed than the creation of a narrative.  And they slip in some Kremlin stuff, too.

The broader issue is that a significant proportion of the American right pretends that being a contrarian edge-lord is a substitute for critical thought.  So anything the “system” or “narrative” says must be opposed, even when the “system” is clearly correct.  They also have a far different standard for the edgelord shit they push than they do for the stuff they challenge.

Vaccines are a perfect example, they don’t approach ivermectin with half the initial skepticism they reserve for vaccines.  

Edited March 21, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

[PsychMike 1552]

Ukrainian resolve not going away?

 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28797]

Hello, Bettina. 

[RomaVicta 29977]

10 hours ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

Two comments and I'll let it go:  1) We kill people and that's what Trump said. He also asked are we "so innocent" when, clearly, we're not.  2) I am thinking the distinction between a death that occurred as an accidental byproduct of a decision to invade and one that occurred as a deliberate aim of a decision to invade is lost on the person who gets killed.

I'm a proponent of your second point. 

[RomaVicta 29977]

32 minutes ago, PsychMike said:

Ukrainian resolve not going away?

 

 

There was no such thing as a Ukraine. It's all Russian. Get over it and let Putin be the Abe Lincoln of Russia!

(Even I'm having a hard time not commenting on the wild attractiveness of that young woman. It's not just physical. I'm sure she'd be extremely gratified to know that I find her so.)

[Mdhorn 5984]

19 hours ago, Satchel said:

It must be restated for emphasis. What Putin is doing to innocent people in Ukraine is diabolical and an atrocity. It’s really hard to imagine.

Not long ago families were all sitting together having meals and maybe watching tv. Now they may be separated, dead or trying to figure out how to survive minute by minute—when/where to rest, scavenge food, and how to stay warm. All while I debate whether I want to bring or grab a lunch at work. It’s surreal. 

[Mdhorn 5984]

17 hours ago, Lobo said:

Please somebody make this come true.  I know the Danes would use the proceeds for a good cause.  Holy shit, I would buy ten of these to build with my kids.  I know they purposely don't do much in the "real" war space, mainly sticking to spaceships, pirates, etc.---nothing involving modern warfare.  But c'mon Lego, seize the moment, do something good with the sales, and let's have a few laughs.  

Wondering if we could start making our own Legos with a 3-d printer?